Hello everyone.
Many months ago, I posted a poll asking members whether they preferred natural or synthetic medicine. Almost 90% preferred synthetic medicine. Today, I will post my opinion on natural things and natural medicine in particular.
Society is currently obsessed with "natural" things.
As man continues to manipulate more and more of his environment for his own gain, there will always be people who say "no". These are the people that buy organic food, promote alternative medicine, and oppose all genetic engineering. Some might call them luddites.
Natural medicine.
This is a hot topic, a lot of people are effected by it because suddenly these products are popping up in their shops. Most examples of natural medicine are derived from exotic-sounding herbs and animal parts.
Fortunetly, most supporters of alternative medicine would quickly change their minds if they somehow contract a serious, life-threatening disease. Nevertheless, some people insist on using primitive forms of medicine and cite pseudoscientific claims such as...
"By placing the body in a restored, magnetic field, I theorize that overall body performance should be greatly enhanced."
"The plant balances the body's energy system and allows the user to eliminate most toxins from their body."
Of course, most "remedies" do not have a pseudoscientific claim to go with them. In fact, most examples of "alternative medicine" originate from remote Chinese and African pygmy tribes who had no understanding of modern science. Nevertheless, the thought processes used are very simple and primitive in contrast to proper scientific discoveries...
1. The elephant lives very long.
2. The elephant has blood.
3. Blood is the life force.
4. Therefore, I must consume the blood of the elephant.
1. The tiger has good eyesight.
2. The tiger has eyes.
3. The tiger uses its eyes to see things.
4. Therefore, I must consume the eyeballs of the tiger.
1. The flower is red.
2. Red is the "colour of the gods".
3. The flower must posses supernatural properties.
4. Therefore, I must consume the flower.
The above does not fit in with the scientific method at all.
The following images represent typical examples of alternative medicine. The last image shows a selection of dried snakes sold in a market in Taiwan...
There are many good reasons for man to manipulate his environment for his own gain. However, friend luddite will not have this. He would rather go and pay a huge mark-up for organic food that has negligible benefit. Why is it that some people have such a problem with technology and man altering the environment?
What makes people think like this? What makes people favour things that are "natural" over things that are optimised for man?
One of the biggest reasons is that lately it's become cool to care about the environment and generally be against technology. A lot of people think caring about the environment means favouring it over mankind, and hence anything that seems to alter the environment for mankind is bad.
This fad also extends to the romanticism surrounding the so-called noble savage, the primitive man that lived in harmony with the environment and was in touch with the living world. Yeah, right. Primitive man did as much damage to the environment as his puny technology would allow. These people understood the bottom line, they lived in a world where the basic needs of live where not readily available. A world where they are can make us blind to the needs of mankind, this leads to people thinking that we can feed the population of the world without artificial pesticides and chemicals. We can't. They think these artificial products are just tools of capitalism used to make fat cats richer. They aren't. We need this stuff to feed people and keep them alive, don't forget that.
Most new technology will be opposed by some religion or other. There's no reasoning with these people, although you can reason with people who have objections based on logical moral philosophy.
Alternative medicine is just a myth and an ancient relic of our primitive past. Nylon and polyester replaced cotton and wool. Homes replaced caves. The ballpoint pen replaced the fountain pen. These were all the result of intensive scientific development. Without scientific progress, man is no different than the other animals which currently inhabit our world.
I think we should let go of nature and hitch our future ride into technology. It is evident that natural medicine is redundant and obsolete in today's modern world. How can we achieve our goal of a bright, shining future if society continues to insist that we should revert back to our primitive simian roots?
